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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Aberzanzorax" data-source="post: 5892548" data-attributes="member: 64209">To @<a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/member.php?u=1" target="_blank">Morrus</a> , I wanted to xp you for more eloquently stating the point I was attempting to get to, specifically, splitting the hair on their releasing gobs of info, while at the same time seeming to walk around with certain info in briefcases handcuffed to wrists (maybe a mixed metaphor, but the point stands). Crazy Jerome said (I don't know the proper way to "@" someone with two names)...that there is a difference between fans and commentators, which I do agree with. When we start discussing that component, it certainly weakens my overall premise (though I don't think it invalidates it entirely). Umbran brings up my "fans" vs. fans comment as well.  I'm not sure exactly what the distinction in my mind is, honestly...or how to put it into words. It's something along the lines of "people who want to buy their product" which I think is a pretty high number of people who talk about Paizo, versus "people who want...to want...to buy their product," which I think is a higher percentage of people at WotC...though I'm sure both companies have percentages of each group. To @<a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/member.php?u=177" target="_blank">Umbran</a> , I agree with you. Specifically this quote: And I do, to a degree. I've made efforts (and I think I've had somewhere from fair to middling success) to behave better across the board, notably on roleplaying forums. I also try to admit when I've been misbehaving or even (gasp) when I'm wrong and will verbally change sides (even if only partially).   However, while we must all individually own our personal bad behavior, there is also my core contention...that we as a group of fans are more reactionary than "actionary" (not a word, but sue me). The fans do not drive our own milieu...we are responsive to the environment in which we find ourselves. Granted, we shape that environment (as a whole...I'm speaking in social psychology and/or sociological terms) as well, but the real forces upon the environment are the companies, the games, and the bru ha ha surrounding the lot of it (which is largely dependent upon marketing...intentional or unintentional...good or bad).   As I sort of hinted at above, and will state more concretely now, I"m looking at this in a social context...how forces tweak large groups to react. I'm also wondering who has the most control over these environments and group think, and wondering what it would take to "unite the fanbase"...and suggesting that... ...we know SOME about 5e, but not nearly enough for anyone to decide if it's a game they'd truly like or not, yet many have strong opinions about it already. What forms these strong opinions? Is it the game? No. We don't know enough about that (apart from outliers who have strong "gotta be out of the game or I'll hate it" or "gotta be in the game or it's a no go"). What forms the opinions, especially on a group level, but also on a personal/individual level is the perception of the game as it is being presented to us, including through news items and other such happenings.  If you want to polarize a group, give them confusion. Naysayers will dream up doomsday and optimists will dream up utopia. Then they'll fight about it. If you want to unite a group, give them a vision. WotC was doing well with this early on for 5e. I wish they'd continue to do so, and I also wish they'd realize that providing a vision INCLUDES addressing messy stuff, and this is perhaps MORE important than their articles about mere game rules and theory.</blockquote>

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